By the way, I forgot to mention that I read an article on you about you being at the Macworld expo. Here is a piece of it:

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was spotted walking over to the exhibit hall after the speech. "I cried," said Wozniak, in reaction to Jobs' decision. "It felt just like the old days, with Steve making announcements that shook my world."

Come back to Apple computers Woz! It would help the company and give it some good publicity!

Woz

Well, I did actually cry at two places. The imovie with the kids was so good, and then when Steve announced his CEO plans it felt like yesterday's dreams had returned.

Over the last few years, I've noticed Sun Microsystems has been trying to get into the home computing market by introducing NC and the Sun Ray (thin client computers). Apple computers has been doing something similar. The iMac and iBook are not true thin client computers; but, the idea has been the same where they are trying to get their computers more Internet-oriented.

In my opinion, Sun should get out of the home computing market and stick to what they do best with their enterprise servers. However, I think apple has a better chance at introducing the thin client concept than sun does. What do you think? After all, apple is the 2nd or 3rd largest computer manufacturer in the world...

Woz

A lot of smart people are seeing the world go the same way, that's all.

Now, I look across Silicon Valley with it's traffic and pollution and super-speed pace. There must be a better way. Have you given any thought as how to reshape the business society so that people no longer have to drive to work? I'm talking about a virtual business with no central office location.
I am about to embark on a startup with this workplace in mind. And I would like to know what you think.

Woz

It's surely coming. It may take decades. What do we drive at all for? To take vacations, to shop, to get gas, to go to work. Once enough of these needs are gone, we may stop using cars and only have mass transportation to get to interesting places. Just in time, since we won't have that much choice someday, when gas runs out.

Dear Woz, How old are your boys? Maybe if they are around my age we can talk or something, you can give them my e-mail address? Why don't you have any spare time? Is there any assistant work you want me to do for you? I am very trust worthy and I have references; and for you I will work for free anytime. I have a Power Mac 6100; actually I am the only person I know with such an old computer. If I get a chance to sell my $1000-$1500 clarinet at a pawn shop or whatever I may be able to get an upgrade; but that is the most I can afford. As you can see my parents aren't very cooperative in my computing.

Woz

My boys are 12 and 17 but I'm careful not to ever have them bothered with all the things that come to me, like this. I have no spare time because I get about 100 emails a day like yours, and I get maybe 100 more of other types. This is after I cut down on some Macintosh email lists because it got to the point that I had no family life at all.

My style is to be as direct as possible. I had assistants for years but that often cost me time in getting what I wanted or getting said what I wanted said. I now have almost no such assistance.

My uncles and cousins all have peecees!! I can't take it anymore and they are planning to buy new ones. My sister wants a Compaq and so do my parents ( they say it's cheaper to maintain upgrade and all that stuff), they know nothing!!! My sister is comparing the newest Compaq to my old Mac. What am I going to do? Last thing I want to mention today: I want to write some type of novel, I don't understand how they make their books so thick? (as in coming up with content) I might be able to write about myself If I concentrated I could get anywhere from 300-800 pages maybe, but is my life interesting enough that people would want to read about it, I mean I can't even write a grammatically correct e-mail, not to mention all the fancy words that authors use. What are your views on this?

When is your birthday? Do you want to be pen pals? (I promise not to take up too much of your time)

Woz

My birthday is August 11, 1950. Sorry, but I don't have time enough for a few close friends to have any pen pals too. Just once in a very long while would be about right for me. It doesn't mean that I don't like you or want a pen pal, just that I haven't the time.

I just want you to know that you helped inspire me to get involved with computers and electronics. Reading articles in Popular Science, and a computer hobbyist magazine that I can't remember, I do remember the articles featured tinkering with the Osborne, Mac and the computer I was going to get.. The Ohio Scientific. I never got the Ohio Scientific, but I did build my own kit computer when I was 15, the Ace 2000, it was a clone of the old Sinclair boxes.

I later went to college to get an Electronic Engineering Degree. I designed access control systems for a while and started to write interface programs in C for the PCs. Later I picked up Unix and now I work as a "Systems Engineer" basically I design networks, program routers, unix system admin, perl scripts.. stuff like that.

I'd like to get your opinion of the Open Software movement. I run Linux on a G3 and have been very impressed with it's robustness.

Woz

You clearly came from the early computer days.

You can basically find lots of jobs but there's always way to much to know and learn to do it all in your field.

I like the motivations of the Open Software movement. It is probably the only way things can change in the OS world nowadays. No company could do what this movement is doing. I'm told that many many companies are developing hardware based on Linux (I have a TIVO) and are telling Microsoft that they are concentrating on Windows versions of software when they are really putting their main efforts into Linux versions. It makes sense.

One of my current woes is that I only get free time slots long enough to start reading my Linux installation manuals, and by the time I get back it's too late for that version, and I've never quite gotten there. Of course, 10 hours of email a day and lots of other normal human tasks get in the way of many things like that.

Thanks for answering my previous questions *so* quickly. I've never expected someone as famous as you to be so quick and personal when replying to people. This really isn't related to anything with computers but I'm curious as to when you believe the new millennium was/is. 2000 or 2001?

Woz

2001.

We learn in computers to start numbering things at 0. Like addresses and indexes. When we try to fight it our programs tell us that things work out the most efficiently when starting with 0. It's like a sign from nature (or God) that it's right. I wouldn't expect the world to do the right thing very often. Look at times (12 is not after 11 on a clock, it's before) for example. A very good book touching on such matters is "Shades of Reality" by Bob Bishop. It's as entertaining as it is enlightening.

Hello, Woz. It is such an honor to get an e-mail from a living legend. You are my ideal human. If everyone was like you there would be no wars no nothing. Well, anyway on one of your letters you said the imacs make good servers. How do you use imacs as servers? How do they perform? I was thinking of getting a imac dv special edition. The reason I want something for dv. Also I want to learn the Mac OS I have never used it and never owned a Mac. Also what is Mac os x and Mac os x server and how do they differ from Mac os 9? Thanks. I kind of funny talking to a living god. :) Gosh I wish I could meet you once in my life before I die. I pray. You or Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates. Thanks.

Woz

The reason that I said iMacs make good servers is because they make good web servers for myself. An iMac is complete and needs almost no software added. They are even very convenient to set up as file servers on our LAN. As for performance, Apple's G3 and G4 processors are always the highest performing ones, matching pentiums at twice the clock speed in many cases. But the real performance answer is that you're only feeding data to a single T1 line, 1.5 Mbps, in my case, with a light, nonprofessional, user base. ÊOne client of mine uses an iMac for his web server with clients in many countries as far away as India. No other machine would have better throughput for him. He runs DNS, ftp, web server and also Timbuktu which allows him to control his server from far away.

I bought a copy of MacOS X server but didn't have time to set it up. A friend is using mine right now to serve some web pages for a company he's trying to start. I don't have any familiarity at all with MacOS X client. I really don't like to know all the upcoming things in advance--it takes too much time and has too many disappointments.

I hope that we do meet some day. My appearances are much rarer than those of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs so you may meet them first. But if you're ever in my area (San Jose area) maybe we can have a coffee. I do that on occasion with people just like yourself. Just don't expect me to remember their names. Well, in your case I might!

Macs suck. Linux is better and its faster than your unstable Macs. On a last note, MACS SUCK. Get a life get a PC and get a good OS and so on. Macs are crap they aren't compatible with other OS's. ha ha.

Woz

To some extent, an OS that does a lot for you becomes unstable and slower.

I have a lot of Linux servers at my site and they crash on occasion, as do the Macintosh servers. But for the most part you have good points. It's just that you'd be better heard by everyone if you avoided statements like "Macs suck." In saying that you instantly get most people (not myself necessarily) thinking that you just want to be critical and not contributory.

A good OS is like your friend. Personal computer users like to use their computers a lot and spend virtually no time upkeeping them or installing them. They aren't very technical either. The requirement of the technical ability to install Linux is out of the question for most PC users. Having to have a Linux expert around to fix and install and setup and explain things is unrealistic to most people that don't want to do it themselves.

Perhaps there will be local shops that maintain Linux machines someday and then we'll all have a better world.